


Remember Me

by HarperJean



Series: Cricket [2]
Category: Hanson (Band)
Genre: Afterlife, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Close Sibling Relationships, Gen, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Parent Death, Sibling fights, Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-27
Updated: 2017-10-11
Packaged: 2019-01-06 04:01:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12203478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarperJean/pseuds/HarperJean
Summary: Every summer of Taylor's life has been filled with memories of his siblings wasting the sun drenched days in the tree house out back.  This summer is no different.Based on my full length fic "Cricket"





	1. Chapter 1

“I didn’t mean to yell. She thought I was mad at her and I wasn’t. I’m not,” Ike looked out the windshield, his jaw clenching with tense anticipation. Now that we were all sitting still in the car, waiting impatiently to arrive in Columbus, the importance of the plan we had formulated seemed to dim as quickly as the sun was setting. 

It was the golden hour. My favorite time of day. 

“She knows that,” I replied, trying to assuage Ike’s guilt. None of us liked yelling at each other, but at the end of the day, we were siblings. Fights happened. Cricket and Zac went at it all the time, but usually it was just silly bickering that ended in one of them storming to their room to cool off, then coming down for dinner as though nothing happened. It had gotten worse in the last month though. Something was wrong. None of us knew how to fix it. 

I looked out the passenger side window listlessly, savoring the hour before dusk when everything was cast in a perfect, yellow glow. Cricket and I used to play pretend for hours each day, and everything became so heightened around this time. Anything seemed possible. I screwed my eyes tightly and tried to send her some sort of message. We hadn’t told her our plan, because we knew she would try to stop us, and we were already set in our ways. We only wanted to find him. Throw a few punches. Let him know that you don’t mess with the Hanson family. You don’t rape a girl that has three teenage brothers, always ready to pick a fight. That was just common sense, right? You would think. I saw the city skyline and instinctively looked behind me, before remembering that Cricket wasn’t with us. I missed her already. It had only been a couple hours. 

***

They say when you die, there’s a tunnel with a brilliant light at the end of it. They say you see all the things and people and places you love, and then you step into the golden glow, happy and relieved. They say you see your loved ones that have gone before you. They say it’s painless. 

Clearly “they” have never died before. 

***

I stayed in the treehouse. It’s where I woke up. There was darkness and pain and yelling. Red and blue lights behind my eyelids. My sister shrieking; her tears falling on my face. Then there was nothing. 

Until I woke up in the treehouse. 

I don’t think I realized I had died until that afternoon, when I saw Zac out on the back stoop, his face in his hands. I slung the top half of my body out of the window and called to him, asking if he was okay. He sat there, silently shuddering with sobs. I had never seen him cry like that. I wanted to go to him, to comfort him, but something held me inside of our tiny wooden oasis of youth. I yelled again, hoping maybe if I was loud enough, he would hear me. 

“ZAC?! I’m up here. I’m right HERE.” 

His head shot up and I smiled, an expression that quickly faded when I saw his own - complete horror and grief and guilt and hopelessness. The night’s events suddenly rushed to the surface. David. Sunset. His knife in my stomach. Sirens. 

“Come to the tree house,” I said loudly, hoping my voice would project all the way to the other side of the yard. He stood up and walked back into the house. 

I stayed in the treehouse, every hour that passed confirming the fact that I was not in fact really there, even though I could feel the rough wooden floorboards on my skin and the July sun made sweat spring to my temples. You grow up thinking that when you die, things will become clearer, and yet, I had no idea what game the universe was playing with me. I saw my family members in glimpses. Zac seemed to come out to the back stoop often to cry, but he never ventured to the tree line. I could see into Ike’s bedroom window, where he paced more often than not. I saw my father in the golden light of the kitchen late into the night, drinking bottle after bottle of beer.

I was laying down in a patch of sunlight when the sound of shoes on the ladder made me jump. It was only seconds until I saw Cricket’s head pop up through the hole in the ground, and tears of relief sprung to my eyes. This had been the longest I had ever gone without seeing my sister. A flash of hope coursed through my body. Maybe she would be able to see me, or hear me, or at least know that I was there. We were the closest, after all. Maybe that was how it worked. We could still play together in the treehouse, and tell each other about our days. We could still go through life, the two of us. 

“Cricket!! Cricket, you’re here!” I exclaimed loudly, ready to see her face brighten in joyful bewilderment. Instead, she settled herself in the same patch of sunlight I had been laying in, turning her face into the light and closing her eyes. Her cheeks had tear tracks etched over each freckle. “Cricket…” I said, my voice turning into a whimper. “Look at me. Hey. I’m right here.” She opened her eyes and squinted into the sunlight. 

“Um...Hey Tay?” She said quietly, her voice catching with every word. 

“Yeah?” I put my face right next to her, practically yelling into her ear. I would make her hear me. I had to make her hear me. 

“Your um...your funeral was today.” She closed her eyes again, and I knew it was because she felt silly. To her, she was in an empty treehouse talking to someone who wasn’t there. But I was there. I scooted around so that I was sitting right in front of her, our crossed legs touching at the knees. Just like was always did when we told each other stories for our ears alone.

“A lot of people were there that we don’t really know. So many...so many girls were there,” she laughed nervously, and I smiled. “I don’t know any of these girls! I don’t think you would either. Well...we probably know of them, but I’m sure we’ve never talked to them.” 

“No, we probably never did,” I said quietly. 

“Anyway...um...Dad took us to the Grille afterwards, which threw us all for a loop. I think he feels really sorry for us. The whole town does. Um…”

“Whoa, that doesn’t sound like Dad,” I said with a loud chuckle. I couldn’t even imagine the scene. “I wish I could have been there. I could go for a tuna melt right about now. I’m not even hungry but...that sounds delicious.” 

She cleared her throat and opened her right eye. I knew that all she saw was the window. The sky beyond. She crawled over to the hole in the floor and peered down, making sure that she was still alone and that Zac or Ike wasn’t coming to check on her. 

“Um...so...I know it’s only been a couple days but I miss you a lot. Probably too much. I don’t know...I don’t know exactly where you are or what you can hear or see but…”

“I’m right here, Cricket!! I’m right here.” I placed my hand on her knee and she swatted as though there was a mosquito dancing on her skin. “Please see me,” I whined desperately. “Please.” I felt tears spring to my eyes just as I saw them start to fall from hers. “Please…” 

“...But I hope you know that I love you so much and...and I don’t think I’ll ever stop missing you, okay? Mom was different. I don’t miss her anymore. I don’t know if I ever really did. But...I don’t know if I can do this, Tay. I really, really don’t know yet. I know I have Ike and Zac and...and thank God I do but…”

Her voice caught and suddenly all her words were lost to a symphony of sobs. She crumpled over and curled up in the corner, her whole body heaving. I crawled over to her and stroked her back until she fell asleep. This wasn’t fair. None of this was fair.


	2. Chapter 2

My days ran together. The sun rose and set methodically. I sat in the tree house, thankful that Cricket had accidentally left her copy of _Fellowship of the Ring_ in the corner. I wondered if she wanted it back. She hadn’t come to visit me since the afternoon of my funeral, even though I tried with all my might to pull her there with my thoughts, but I wasn’t sure if my thoughts even had that power anymore. After all, I was...gone. I couldn’t feel Cricket’s thoughts knocking on the door of my brain. I couldn’t read her glances or notice her subtle shifts in body language. So why should should be able to feel me in this tree house, asking her to climb up the ladder? I read a few chapters a day. I moved around the small wooden room, chasing the sunlight. I felt better when I was in a golden patch; more alive. It was July but I was always chilly. 

I watched vigilantly for signs of my siblings. I was never hungry or tired, so I didn’t sleep. I counted the number of squirrels I saw every day, and when I got bored of that, I started counting birds. Zac mowed the lawn. He glanced up at the tree house and grimaced. He looked so much older. How long had it been? I thought it had only been a couple weeks but maybe I was mistaken. It was hard to keep track of time. For all I knew, it had been years since the night in Columbus. 

One night I heard footsteps in the grass. Someone was running towards the ladder and after listening for a few seconds I knew undoubtedly it was Cricket. I could hear her heavy breathing; the lightness in her gait. She clambered up through the hole in the floor and let her body collapse right next to me. Tears of pure relief sprang to my eyes. 

“Cricket!” I exclaimed, my voice echoing off the walls. I was shocked by how loud I was, even though I knew she couldn’t hear me. 

“Tay?” She whispered cautiously. My heart thudded in my chest (but did it really? Maybe I was just feeling aftershocks from when I was alive. Can your heart thud if it’s not beating at all?). This was it! This was the moment that we found each other again. She would see me, in the darkness, sitting there, waiting for her. She would come visit me in this tree house every day and we would talk for hours. She could tell me everything that happened and I could pretend I was with her for it all. Her last days of high school, college, her new friends, her classes. She would meet a boy and fall in love with him. Maybe get married. My stomach dropped. She would forget about me at some point through all of this. She would have to stop visiting me eventually. You can only talk to a ghost for so long. 

But in the moment, I didn’t care. She heard me. Finally. 

“Yes? Yes, I’m here! I’ve been waiting for you!” 

“Taylor?” 

“YES. YES, I’M HERE!!!” I shouted. I got as close to her face as I could, her breathing still shaky and her forehead shimmering with sweat. She didn’t blink or flinch. She didn’t hear me at all. 

She crawled back into the corner, her face turned towards the wall. I laid down behind her and matched my breath to hers. “I’m right here, Cricket.” I said it again and again. I wondered if she dreamed about me. 

***

“I don’t know Zac, just find her!” My head shot up from where it was resting on the ground, the sound of my oldest brother’s voice shaking me from my thoughts. After Cricket fell asleep, I grabbed her book from the other side of the room and read to her all through the night. I kept waiting for my voice to get scratchy or my eyes to get tired but it never happened. I sat beside her and read out loud by the light of the moon until the sun started to rise, and then I curled around her again, waiting for her to wake up. 

“Criiiiiicket?” I heard Zac yell from the yard, walking closer and closer to the treeline. “Cricket where are you?” He stopped underneath the treehouse, surely looking up the ladder and realizing there was only one sensible place for our sister to hide out. I felt her stir beside me and scooted over to giver her room. 

“Are you up there?” Zac asked from the ground. 

“Yeah,” she answered, her voice still groggy from slumber. 

“Why?” 

“I don’t know. Couldn’t sleep.” 

“So you slept in there?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Oh. Well...I made you breakfast. Come on down.” 

Cricket poked her head out of the hole and smiled down at our little brother. It was the first time I had actually seen her smile since...well since I started living in the tree house. 

“You could just stay here, ya know,” I said, knowing that she wouldn’t hear me. “I could read you this whole book if you wanted. I started from the beginning again last night.” 

She didn’t turn her head to look at me, but instead started descending the ladder. I watched as they walked towards the house. 

“Happy birthday, weirdo. Hey look...you left the house!” 

“Thanks, Zac. Come on, let’s go eat.”


	3. Chapter 3

When my mother was still alive, I would check on her every morning, just to make sure she was still there. From before I could even remember, I was scared that she would slip away unnoticed in the night. I would catch her nearly every day, her eyes glazing over, her mind obviously somewhere else. I would rush into the kitchen as our dinner was burning, or knock on the door of the bathroom when I could hear the water running too long. It wouldn’t be out of character for her to start walking into the moonlight one night and never look back. 

I was the only sibling to get my mother’s eyes, and I think for some reason, she believed that made me special. Chosen. Worthy of her attention. When no one else could reach her when she disappeared beneath her sorrow, I was the one who was called upon to get a response. It wasn’t a job I necessarily enjoyed, but I knew it was my burden to bear. 

When she died, the four of us clutched each other tightly in the front pew of the church. That night we climbed the ladder into the tree house and sliced our palms open, grasping each other’s hands tightly, promising to never let each other go. When I think back on that night, and the conspiratorial tones we whispered in, I have to stop myself from rolling my eyes, or laughing, or both. We are already related by blood. There was no need for a blood pact. 

It felt right, though. Important. 

I was seven and Zac was about to turn five. Cricket has just turned eight. Isaac was ten. It seemed like centuries ago. 

I dreamed of my mother that night, coming to visit me in the room I shared with Zac. We didn’t say a word to each other, just gazed into the mirror reflection of our eyes. The moonlight made her look like a ghost, and as I sat in the tree house, yearning for one of my siblings to come and keep me company, I figured that she was. Maybe it had really been her, and not a dream. Maybe all of those times she visited me were just like the moments I tried to make Cricket see me. But for some reason, my mother had broken through. It didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense. 

I heard footsteps on the ladder and jumped to my feet. I wasn’t sure why I was so skittish. Maybe all the time alone. 

Cricket’s head emerged from the hole in the floor. She was carrying a long, flat box. 

“What is that?” I asked her out loud, knowing that there was no use in keeping quiet at this point. 

She sat down facing me and placed the box in front of her. It was a Ouija board. I started laughing loudly. If only she knew that I was right here...but maybe. Maybe this would work. Maybe I could move the planchette around the board. This was it! My heart leapt in my chest (but did it actually? I banished the thought) as I sat down on the opposite side of the board, my breath quickening and my smile wide. 

Cricket took a deep breath and placed her fingers on the planchette. Her hands were trembling. I put mine on hers and she flinched, ever so slightly. She probably just thought it was an ant crawling on her skin or a summer breeze passing over her fingers. I looked at her intently, my stomach clenching at the sight of the person she had become over the course of the summer.

Her hair wasn’t in a braid. It was hanging loosely around her chin, framing her face with it’s golden strands. She was wearing my clothes. Not hand-me-downs, but a shirt and trousers I had just washed a few days before I died. 

She looked like me. 

I shuddered, focusing myself back on her hands. 

“Taylor?” She scrunched up her face. “Tay? I’m here if you want to talk. I’m right here.” She opened her eyes and looked down at the board. I couldn’t stop staring at this reflection of myself in front of me. The only thing different was the eyes. Hers were brown, like our father’s. 

Before I died, I would never hesitate to say that Cricket and Isaac were the ones that looked the most alike. But now… 

“What...what are you doing?” I turned quickly and saw Zac ascending the ladder and heaving himself up through the hole in the floor. Cricket snatched her hands away before I had the chance to start moving the oracle around the board. I sighed, disappointed in my brother's timing. 

“Um…” 

“Where did you even get that?” He asked, his tone rising quickly in volume. 

“In Columbus.” 

“Don’t you need two people?” 

“Hey, I’m here…” I said quietly. 

“Well yeah, but sometimes people can do it by themselves. I thought maybe I could. Since...you know…” her voice trailed off.

Zac came and stood over her, his hands on his hips. Cricket and I both looked up at him sheepishly. I’m sure it would have been quite a sight to behold if he could in fact see both of us. Two variations of the same person, with the same look on their faces, cowering in front of their younger brother. Their younger brother who had inexplicably aged decades over the summer. 

“You really think you’re gonna talk to Taylor through that?” 

“I don’t know...maybe…” 

“Jesus Christ, Cricket.” 

“Hey,” I snapped instinctively, leaping to my feet to defend my sister. I wasn't aggressive by nature, but history told us that anyone coming after Cricket made something inside me snap. 

“I don’t…” 

“What is wrong with you?” His voice filled the tree house, causing Cricket to curl in on herself. 

“C’mon Zac, leave her alone.” I knew he couldn’t hear me. I knew it was useless. 

“I just want to know what he wants to tell me.” 

“First you flip out because your friend has a harmless crush on him, and now you’re trying to use a board game to talk to him?” 

“He’s trying to tell me something, I know he is.” 

“Cricket.” 

“There was a piece of paper in the jeans I put on. In the specific pair that I put on when I...It was my birthday, Zac, it...he was trying to lead me to something and I need to figure it out.”

“What pair of jeans?” I asked loudly, trying my best to interject myself into the conversation. What did she find? What was she talking about? I could feel embarrassment start to creep up my cheeks. Lord knows what was shoved into my pocket before I wound up here. 

“You only wear his clothes!! Of course you found a piece of paper that he scribbled on before he died because you don’t even wear your own clothes anymore! You wear his pants and shirts and you sleep in his bed...you cut your hair to look like his...Cricket this isn’t...this isn’t okay!!”

I watched my sister sputter at Zac’s accusations. He was right, of course. Her lower lip started to tremble as she desperately tried to keep her tears from spilling. 

“You don’t...you don’t understand.” 

“YES I DO!! My brother died too, you know. He was my brother too. This isn’t all about you.” He turned on his heel and began descending the ladder. “He’s gone, Cricket. You keep trying to contact the ghost of Taylor but...you’ve...you’ve turned into the ghost of Taylor.” 

We both stood completely still until we heard Zac slam the screen door and head back inside the house. No tears fell from Cricket’s eyes, but she pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket. It was worn and creased. She had clearly held it in her hands for hours at a time. My handwriting was scribbled across it. 

I leaned over her shoulder and read the first line out loud. “Goodbye four leaf clovers, hello gone awry...Oh gosh, Cricket I wrote this months ago. It was just some stupid poetry…” 

She clutched it to her chest. 

“It wasn’t nothing. I know you’re here.”


	4. Chapter 4

_“Look at those two freaks over by the stream,” I heard a voice ring out. It was Teddy, a boy older than Isaac, who would eventually enlist and leave this little town behind, promising his sweetheart he would come back and trying to wipe the somber looks off of his parent’s faces. But when he was thirteen, he was a menace, and the leader of his pack of minions._

_“What do you want, Theodore?” Cricket screeched up the small hill where he was standing like a spoiled prince surveying his land. We were in the woods behind the park, where Ike was playing baseball with boys from his class and Zac was busy on the playground. We had been pretending we were knights sent on a noble quest. I knew better than to ask if Cricket wanted to be the princess. She wanted to ride beside me into battle._

_We found sticks that were the perfect length for swords and strung them through our belt loops. We had just battled the army of Orcs (it was only a matter of time before Cricket started turning the forest into Middle Earth) and I had taken a wound to the stomach. I dropped down into the grass and looked at her hovering above me, willing me to stay with her. I placed my hands on her cheeks, her brown eyes boring into mine._

_“I want to know why the two of you look like you’re about to french.”_

_I knew this wasn’t the first time we had been talked about like this. Cricket and I were closer than any two people in this town. We held hands and swam in the river together. We weren’t really friends with anyone else. I understood it must have looked odd to an outsider._

_“We’re just playing pretend!”_

_“Pretending like you’re going steady with your brother?”_

_I stayed silent as I watched Cricket leap up the hill and lunge at Teddy, all scrawny limbs and matted amber curls. Her braid had come loose in the heat of battle, and she had large grass stains on her knees. She leapt on top of him, the shock of it causing him to fall underneath her meager weight. She scratched at his face, not quite knowing how to throw a punch._

_“Cricket!” I yelled, too late to stop her. I climbed the small hill clumsily, tripping over exposed roots and grasping at weeds._

_“Get her off of me!!” Teddy yelled at his followers, who heaved my sister away from him even though she continued to kick wildly._

_“I’ll kill you THEODORE,” she spat, causing me to giggle in spite of myself. I grabbed her wrist and pulled her over to me, away from the strange boys I didn’t trust._

_“I’d like to see you try.”_

_“Name the time!” She yelled back, breathless and pumping with youthful adrenaline. Not many people saw this aggressive side of her, but when they did, she made sure they wouldn't forget._

_“Cricket, come on, let’s go home,” I pleaded, desperately wanting the altercation to blow over._

_“Yeah, go home and kiss each other.”_

_“Oh give it up, Teddy,” I finally said, my voice dripping with hatred for the boy who taunted my sister. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”_

_“Oh the little one is talking to me now. You know, I thought Cricket was the sister, but I think you might actually be the girl. She fights all your battles, right?”_

_It was my turn to lunge. He was three years my senior, but growing up with rowdy brothers meant I had some practice in rough housing. I punched him square in the nose, grabbed Cricket’s hand, and ran for my life._

_Later that night, we sat down to spaghetti for the third time that week._

_“Did you guys see Teddy at the park today?” Ike asked, making Cricket and I look up from our plates. “The guy had the bloodiest nose I’ve ever seen.”_

_I smiled and nudged Cricket under the table lightly. She snorted and started giggling uncontrollably. Soon we were both gasping for air between our laughs, the bewildered looks on our brothers faces only fueling the hilarious fire._

***

Zac started visiting the tree house more and more after the night with the Ouija board. Half the time he was frustrated and angry, scribbling furiously into a notebook he kept close to his chest and humming clusters of notes. The other half of the time, he came to the tree house to smoke a joint, heaving relieved sighs with every hit. I sat with him and inhaled his smoke, hoping to get some sort of contact high. Whether I did or didn’t, couldn’t really tell. I preferred those visits, though. Because that’s when he would talk to me. 

“I’m really sick of being so cautious around our sister. I know you want to defend her, I get it. She’s your favorite and you’re hers. I get it. It’s just...it’s so weird, Taylor! She looks just like you. She wears your clothes, she...she doesn’t wear her hair in a braid anymore, and she cut it to just under her chin. _Exactly like yours_. I do kind of wonder if that’s why Susie is so weirdly obsessed with her. But...I don’t know…” 

“This Susie girl again…” I said, taking a deep breath as Zac exhaled. I had heard him talk about her before. 

“They aren’t even speaking anymore and they both keep bringing each other up. I guess it’s better than bringing you up all the time? I don’t really know anymore. I don’t know anything anymore.” He rested his head against the wall and closed his eyes. I couldn’t get over how much older he looked. It seemed as though he had aged five years since the beginning of summer. 

“We got in a pretty big fight yesterday,” he mumbled, his eyes still closed. “I know that we get in fights all the time, trust me...I’ve never butted heads with anyone the way I can with Cricket. But yesterday was...it was different. If we weren’t siblings….” 

“What? If you weren’t siblings what?” 

“I’m not sure if we would ever forgive each other.” 

“You’re young. You have plenty of time to patch things up.” 

There were a few moments of silence before Zac started chuckling. 

“What?” I asked, even though I knew he couldn’t hear me. 

“Do you remember that time you punched Teddy? I mean, I wasn’t there, but you told me about it and then after that people were scared of you at school. It was amazing.” He started laughing louder then, and I joined him. I couldn’t help but laugh at the memory. It was all so ridiculous. Teddy’s accusations, the anger that flared up inside my body, the perfectly placed hit, the blood that gushed from his nostrils. I remembered going back to school on Monday and seeing a huge bandage on his face, and shame in his eyes. He didn’t admit to being punched by me, but rumors started (thanks to my little brother) and soon everyone was talking about it. 

“I still can’t believe it. God, that feels like so long ago….” he trailed off, his eyes glazing over, the effects of the marijuana taking hold. “You and Cricket never….you never did anything like that though, right?” 

“What?! No! No, of course not.” 

“That’s stupid, why would I even think that? I was always around you anyway.”

“Yeah, exactly. Don’t you think you would have known? It was...it was never like that. That’s why I got so angry at Teddy…”

“Yeah that’s...that’s stupid. Sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. This is all just...a lot.” 

“I know,” I said, hoping some part of the sentiment would reach him. I couldn’t blame him for anything. I couldn’t blame any of them. 

***

Later that evening, Cricket came up to the tree house and wrote on a few loose pieces of paper. She folded them up neatly and stuck them in an envelope. I could tell she wrote my name on it by the way the pen moved across the front of the small parcel of papers. She looked around blearily, clearly trying her best not to cry. Her eyes fell on her copy of Fellowship and she smiled weakly. She tucked the envelope into the book and put it back in the corner. 

She left without a word. 

I took the letter out and started reading it. 

_Dear Taylor,_

_Hi. It’s Cricket, obviously. Last night Zac and I got in a huge fight and I don’t want to talk to anyone but you so I’m writing you this letter in a sorry attempt to feel like you’re listening to me. Which maybe you are, I guess I don’t really know how this all works. Last night was the first night I’ve spent in my own bed for a while now. I’ve been sleeping in yours. I hope that’s okay. I’m sure you don’t mind._

My whole world brightened, as if someone was turning up the lights. She was finally talking to me. Really talking to me.


	5. Chapter 5

The sound of Cricket’s laugh made me look up from my book quickly. It had been so long since I had heard the soft giggle that I knew so well, that it took me by surprise. I wondered if I had imagined it, but before I knew it, all three of my siblings were chuckling as they clambered up the ladder into the tree house. 

I knew it was nearing the end of summer. The light had changed slightly, signalling the passage of time. 

My siblings made a circle in the middle of the tree house. Cricket and Zac, without exchanging any words, left a space in between them big enough for someone to sit. I knew it was for me. 

I looked at Cricket. She looked different than the last time I saw her. She had cut her hair up to her chin and was wearing clothes that weren’t hand-me-downs. She didn’t look like me anymore. 

“You did a great job on Zac’s hair!” Ike exclaimed, putting his hand on Zac’s shoulder and examining the close cropped cut that my younger brother was now sporting. Cricket beamed with pride. 

“Thanks! I was nervous but I think it looks good.” 

“Me too. Do you like it Zac?” 

“Yeah. I’m not blonde anymore though,” he said with a smirk. It was true. He looked so different than he had at the beginning of summer. He had surely grown a couple inches too. I had a feeling that these moments would keep happening. I would keep being surprised at the inevitable march of time. I finally sat down between my siblings, my legs crossed and my knees brushing each of theirs. I saw Cricket smile to herself. 

“No one is gonna recognize you at school,” Ike remarked, taking a swig of wine he had probably pilfered from his job. He passed it over to Zac. 

“Trust me, I don’t mind.”

“School is gonna be weird,” Cricket stated, a fact that I was sure she had thought a lot about in the past few days. 

Zac nodded thoughtfully, passing the wine bottle to her. She took a meager swig and grimaced, but swallowed dutifully. 

“You’ll be fine,” Ike said, always the encouraging big brother. “And I’ll come home every weekend, I promise.” 

“You don’t have to, Ike. We can take care of ourselves," Zac insisted. 

“I know you can...but I want to. I’ll miss you guys. I always do.” 

Ike’s words sat heavy in the air. There was silence between the three of them, all of them silently acknowledging the fact that they missed a lot of things, and always would. Three sets of eyes all turned to me, or rather, the space they saw there. 

“I think we should make a pact. A new one,” Ike announced, raising the wine bottle slightly to signify the fact that he was making an important statement. “The one we made when we were little is hereby overruled.” Zac and Cricket looked at each other and both stifled their laughter. “Secrets happen and that’s okay. But...we should promise each other that we will never forget this summer. We’ll never forget what happened.” 

Zac and Cricket both nodded. They each took a drink from the bottle and the pact was sealed. 

“Taylor,” Cricket said, causing me to jump. “I know you’re here too, and you’re a part of this, okay? We love you. We always will. You’ll always be a part of this circle.” 

I could see tears forming in her eyes, but I don’t think they were necessarily tears of sadness. Something was ending that night, but something was beginning too. And I think they all knew that. 

I looked around at each of my siblings. Zac, with his new short hair, who was looking more and more like a man every day. Ike, with an encouraging gaze, who was just trying his best to be there for his little brother and sister. And Cricket. Who was smiling widely for what was surely the first time in weeks. 

I stayed in the circle with them until they trudged to bed, watching the effects of the wine take hold and giggling along with their loud laughter. Finally, when the bottle was empty and the stars were out in full force, they descended the ladder. Cricket went last, and right before she disappeared down the hole, she looked around the tree house and her eyes fell on her book. She heaved herself back up and retrieved it, before whispering “Goodnight, Tay,” into the dark. 

***

I didn’t wake up in the tree house the next morning. I can’t really tell you where I ended up, because that’s something you’ll have to see for yourself. I don’t want to spoil the ending for you. 

For now, I wait for my siblings. I hope they’re writing more songs and having more adventures, maybe this time away from the tiny town we all call home. I can’t wait to see them again. 

It’s only a matter of time.


End file.
